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This is a question I've been thinking about lately. I put up a poll on Furry Amino and got what seemed like mixed results until closer inspection revealed a clear winner. So I'm curious how it'll change on this site, where you don't need an account to vote.

Obviously you can tell my personal preference based on my sona, but I find it interesting how so many sonas have human hair when they're so infrequently represented in media. More often than not, we see anthro characters with styled fur. The entirety of Zootopia for example (Gazelle may or may not be an exception but I consider hair to be slightly different or different enough from the fur so it's a grey area really) has styled/tufts of fur for hair.

I just attended Fur-Eh! a few days ago and asked a lot of the people I saw, and even they had to think about why they picked what they did. I also posed the question to the fandom's own Dr. Nuka, and he said he may consider asking it in the fursona portion of his Furry Psychology survey.

But until this question gets officially recognized, have it at guys! Let's see what the breakdown is! :D

I asked myself that question, and originally the poll did say "Both" instead of "no preference". However I thought the later was a bit more concise in that one didn't have a preference for one over the other. This works with loving or hating both equally.

But if one did hate both then it'd be interesting to know what they like instead of the two items.

I picked "No Preference, but my personal fursona has human hair" because my character's "mane" isn't really similar to a zebra's, but if it were another species without head/neck hair at all it might not have humanized hair at all. Definitely not if it were a reptile/fish/amphibian.

I'm just going to keep replying to myself like an annoying twit, because, sure, why not? But anyway, one of the improvements of Skyrim over Oblivion is that it finally let me make a Khajiit character without an atrocious hairstyle (this is partly my preference for no "hair", partly, omigawd, Khajiit girl, you need a better stylist!).

Interestingly I did think about putting in something along those lines such as "No Preference; have multiple characters with both styles"

However, since the others dealt with "fursonas" the question then came to my mind on; well is a character a fursona? It is possible to identify as multiple fursonas I suppose. But anyone can create characters, but just because one creates a character doesn't mean they are a fursona.

It was a tough call, and I had already added the 'no' fursonas, so I didn't want to stretch the poll too thin.

That was probably the correct decision I suppose to keep the poll from getting too many choices.

On the subject of multiple fursonas, it is an issue that I have thought about before... maybe it would be its own poll/study. How many furries tend to create several "fursonas," how separate are those fursonas in reality (i.e. are they actually really separate personalities or more like different versions of the same personality?). I have several characters and if you asked me which one was my "fursona," I don't know that I would have an answer. At one time yes, but I've accumulated too many and they are substantial enough to me now that I don't see them as side characters.

Hair may appeal to the "furry as an avatar" crowd. Perhaps older furs are more into realistic animals? Or girls prefer hair, and boys tend to like fur? I see my own character's head-fur as a different type of fur (matching the colours on their tail). The breed's creator calls it 'hair', so perhaps it's a matter of perspective (human hair is essentially fur).

I'm definitely hoping that it gets included on the next furry psychology questionnaire, it seems very fascinating.

Yeah the line between hair and fur is a tough one on characters, when it's hair I think it needs to be significantly different from the fur. It really is a fine line and I don't expect my poll to be definitive question, it's far from perfect. But hopefully it can start a conversation that'll lead to some more indepth discussion on it. :3

Anthros with human styled hair are few and far between in media, it's always been like that so that's why I assumed we'd see more styled fur than anything. Furry Amino leaned differently though. And 'm not sure what you mean by "furry as an avatar", isn't that just a fursona?

I was thinking of "a furry character specifically intended to reflect your real-life identity", which may include hair-styles. Many characters in roleplaying worlds aren't intended to represent the player per-se; they're just interesting to play. Use of the word 'anthros' suggests to me a focus on physical similarity vs. mental ['feral']. Or maybe it's just from DA?

There was a poll on this back on the Internet Furry Proximity Locator website; regrettably I couldn't find a way to link to the poll directly that would work for users who aren't registered and signed in, but once you're signed in, click the Voting tab, look for 'Furry Anatomy' and click on it. It's the first question.